The Junior Reserve Officer Trainings Corps (JROTC) was originally developed under the National Defence Act of 1916 to increase U.S. readiness in the face of World War I. The program experienced rapid expansion in the 1990’s, which continues to this day. The courses in military science are taught in high schools by retired military personnel and are a highly successful recruiting and public relations tool for the military. If a JROTC unit or academy is starting up or already running in your community, begin raising questions. Meet with the principal, teachers’ union representatives, student groups, and school board members and challenge them to consider what tradeoffs have been made.

Youth and Militarism Program from the American Friends Servide Committee.

In April of 1995, the American Friends Service Committee published Making Soldiers in the Public Schools: Analysis of the Army JROTC Curriculum. The Army updated Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) textbooks in 1997 (December 5,1997), although those textbooks have not necessarily reached many or even most JROTC classrooms. The new text, "Leadership Education and Training 1" (LET 1), used in 9th and 10th grade classes, contains the most substantial revisions since 1989 (July 24, 1989). We compare the old and new versions of the curriculum. READ MORE

At publication time, Lesley Bartlett was a graduate student specializing in educational anthropology at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lesley Bartlett is now an Associate Professor of Education at Columbia University in New York City. She has a B.A.,from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1991), and a Ph.D., from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2001). and has taught in the North Carolina public school system.

ROTC directly benefits a foreign policy that is imperialistic and advocates preemptive war.

Choosing to have ROTC on campus is not a politically neutral choice. It is a choice which supports the current aggressive foreign policy. The pre emptive policy is not limited to Iraq; it will be extended elsewhere.

A campaign to end ROTC is not an attack on students in the ROTC program. They may join the military after graduation or attend West Point if that is their goal. They need not pursue officer training at a non military academy. The students may choose to form a club of individuals interested in the military, but there need not be an institutionally sponsored ROTC program.

Materials/Training: Downloads and Links

This section contains documents that support an informed counter-recruitment community. They include materials in various media developed by CR groups and others. The documents include government documents relevant to military recruitment procedures and national and regional school policy documents. The collection includes MSWord, Text, MSPowerPoint and PDF documents, in addition to links to outside web sites that provide videos and audio archives. They are listed to your left by Type and by Topic.